{"id":14426,"date":"2013-01-04T17:42:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-05T00:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=14426"},"modified":"2013-01-04T17:42:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T00:42:35","slug":"sen-cameron-idaho-may-be-falling-short-when-it-comes-to-funding-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2013\/01\/04\/sen-cameron-idaho-may-be-falling-short-when-it-comes-to-funding-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Cameron: Idaho May Be “Falling Short” When It Comes To Funding Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Molly Messick \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

<\/p><\/div>\n

Sen. Dean Cameron is a Republican from Rupert, Idaho. He represents Minidoka and Cassia Counties, and has been in the Legislature for nearly 25 years. He’s the co-chairman of the panel that crafts Idaho’s annual budget, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

StateImpact<\/em> met with Cameron last month to hear his views on key issues including education funding and the personal property tax.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>One of the big issues this session, it seems, is going to be the personal property tax. Do you think the state should get rid of it, or begin to phase it out?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>I think most people believe that it\u2019s an unfair tax.\u00a0 In my business, if I buy computers, I pay sales tax on it and then I have to turn around and pay personal property tax<\/a>.\u00a0 And so I think most people believe it\u2019s an unfair tax.\u00a0 The issue, however, is how will counties be treated?\u00a0 Or taxing entities who receive revenue from the personal property tax.<\/p>\n

The state doesn\u2019t receive any personal property tax revenue.\u00a0 It all goes to local units of government.\u00a0 There are two camps.\u00a0 One says, ‘It\u2019s not our responsibility as a state to replace the funding.\u00a0 It\u2019s our job to set the public policy, and if that\u2019s an issue for the counties, they have to deal with it.’\u00a0 That\u2019s a really harsh approach.\u00a0 And the other approach is that the state would step up and use additional revenue sources to pay the counties for what they would lose.<\/p>\n

The difficulty is that about 85 percent of those who would be affected wouldn\u2019t cost the state that much, and that\u2019s actually who the legislature would love to help, and that\u2019s individual businesses.\u00a0 Small business in particular.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a group of large business \u2013 utilities, railroads \u2013 where their dollars, their 15 or 20 percent is actually the large cost items.\u00a0 And I\u2019m not sure we can get there.\u00a0 It would cost the state about $80 million, is what I\u2019ve heard, in order to replace that from the state level, and frankly we just don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re running right now at about a 3 percent revenue stream.\u00a0 And for every percentage that’s about $27 million of income.\u00a0 It takes about $70 million in order for the state to just operate under its statutory requirements, without taking on additional obligations.\u00a0 So you\u2019d have to come up with another $80 million on top of that $70 million.\u00a0 You really need revenue growth to be in the 6 to 7 percent range in order to replace revenue lost from repealing the personal property tax.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>I don\u2019t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like that harsh view, as you put it, is not where you fall.<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>No.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how you can harm local units of government.\u00a0 It\u2019s a partnership.\u00a0 We ask them to fulfill certain requirements. We have certain mandates, if you will, that we give local units of government.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how you tell them that you have to comply with these mandates, and yet then cut their funding out from underneath them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a difficult discussion.\u00a0 I will probably be on the back end of the discussion.\u00a0 My job will be to show the budget realities of what they\u2019re choosing and how that affects the overall budget.\u00a0 If you take $80 million out of our overall revenue stream, then that means budget cuts to agencies, and they need to know that.\u00a0 And on top of some fairly lean times already.\u00a0 Those are the rubs that are at play there.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>What business personal property tax repeal proposals have you heard so far?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>There are hundreds of different ideas.\u00a0 Obviously IACI [the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry] is leading the charge on what they want to do.\u00a0 I\u2019ve understood that the governor has said he\u2019s in favor of repealing the personal property tax<\/a>, but I don\u2019t believe he\u2019s in favor of replacing it to the local units of government.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to speak for him, but that\u2019s certainly what I\u2019ve been told.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>Idaho has a lean budget in the wake of the recession.\u00a0 It seems worth asking: if there is going to be an effort to direct money to local government to make up for the personal property tax repeal, is that something the state can withstand?\u00a0 Is this the time, really, to be considering the personal property tax repeal?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>You know, from my perspective, there will be some shifting.\u00a0 It\u2019s going to be a very, very difficult budget year, because first of all, the make-up of the committee.\u00a0 The committee, JFAC<\/a>, is changing and will be even a more conservative committee if people can believe that.\u00a0 On top of that, there are a lot of competing demands and competing issues that have gone unaddressed for the last several years because of the shortage of funds.\u00a0 We in many cases robbed Peter to pay Paul and we did everything we could to minimize the reductions, particularly to education.<\/p>\n

Then as we built out of last year, the last dollar that we cut was public schools, and then they were the first dollar we helped restore.\u00a0 And higher ed.\u00a0 But we\u2019re still not funding higher ed at the level that they need.\u00a0 We\u2019re still not funding public schools at the level that they need.\u00a0 We may not even be meeting the constitutional requirements of our funding there.\u00a0 The Medicaid expenses have diminished, and they\u2019re not quite as robust as what we thought was taking place, because the economy is improving.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of competing demands with the core responsibilities, which is education, public health and public safety. It will be difficult for us to meet those core responsibilities and replace the personal property tax, in my mind.\u00a0 Can it be done?\u00a0 Yeah, but you\u2019ve got to do it, in my opinion, with some strategy.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0 <\/span>There’s a tension between the desire to cut revenue and the need to put funding into a program as substantial as public education.\u00a0 And there’s the question of whether the state is meeting its constitutional requirements with respect to education funding.\u00a0 How do you think that is going to be addressed this session?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>For me, funding public education and higher education is our highest priority.\u00a0 We may fall a little short and we need to work on it.\u00a0 It remains to be seen, however, whether I\u2019ve got the political support to fund it at the level that it should be funded.\u00a0 I do believe that they will be our highest priority and we will give them more deference than any other state agency.\u00a0 There\u2019s probably state agencies that cringe at hearing that, but that\u2019s the truth.\u00a0 We will do the best we can.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s good enough or not is a whole separate question, and whether the legislature can address it or not is a whole other question.\u00a0 We have a lot of new legislators, not just this year, but even you go back two or three years, there\u2019s not a lot of folks with long legislative experience.<\/p>\n

I can look back and remember times when the state was sued before.\u00a0 When other states were sued before and lost.\u00a0 And the requirements that they went through, where courts ended up taking over and raising revenue, etcetera.\u00a0 I hope we don\u2019t get to that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a win-win for anybody.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s a very difficult situation.\u00a0 I hope we don\u2019t get there.\u00a0 It\u2019s up to me and others to try and advocate and help do the right thing, and we\u2019ll do the best we can.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>You said that you want to be sure that the state is adequately funding education.\u00a0 Do you have a number in mind?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>I don\u2019t.\u00a0 Obviously we\u2019ve got a lot of challenges with education because of the failure of the referendums<\/a>.\u00a0 And one of the issues will be \u2013 for public schools \u2013 what do we do with the pay for performance money.\u00a0 Do we keep it in the budget as pay for performance, or do we move it into their base salary, or do we do a combination?\u00a0 As to a hard number, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be grappling with what the revenue is going to be.\u00a0 And you may have heard that the governor reduced his projection for both 2013 and 2014.<\/p>\n

Q: <\/span>Lawmakers will also have to weigh in on whether Idaho should expand Medicaid eligibility<\/a>. The governor’s panel created to study the issue unanimously recommended expansion. Do you think Medicaid eligibility should be expanded?<\/p>\n

A: <\/span>We have to look at what the savings would be for the state, but we have to look at the long-term aspects as well, and there are a number of questions surrounding how that would be done and how you would implement it.\u00a0 It\u2019s not tied to the health insurance exchange<\/a>, but there are some arguments that you help business and industry if you expand Medicaid.\u00a0 If they\u2019re now required to provide health insurance coverage for their six employees, and four out of six would qualify for the Medicaid expansion, they\u2019re going to look at the state and say, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m a little disappointed in is that no one\u2019s come forward to do the Medicaid expansion under a revised, reduced benefit.\u00a0 Some minimal approach, if you will.\u00a0 The Department of Health and Welfare’s approach is, ‘These are our benefits, so if we expand it, we\u2019re going to expand the same level of benefits to everybody.’\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure that sells in these halls.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited and shortened.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Dean Cameron is a Republican from Rupert, Idaho. He represents Minidoka and Cassia Counties, and has been in the Legislature for nearly 25 years. He’s the co-chairman of the panel that crafts Idaho’s annual budget, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee. StateImpact met with Cameron last month to hear his views on key issues including education […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":13766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[210,32,34],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}